World Champion Wishes

Well, okay, maybe the title is slightly misleading…. but in a slight brag, I got a personal good luck tweet from the one and only Chrissie Wellington! To get a message from somone like her, one of the 8 British World Champion triathletes we have this year is humbling to say the least! Easily the best triathlete this country has at the moment (followed closely by Brownlee, though as Philip Graves has said, an Olympic Distance triathlon isn’t a proper triathlon…) for her sheer dominance in the sport. Unbeaten in Ironmans, Female Iron Distance World Record, Hawaii Course World Record… to not even make the shortlist for the BBC Sports Personality of the Year is a disgrace, especially if it was truly about personality as well as achievements, as anyone who knows an ounce about Chrissie will testify, she does a lot for the sport, for charity and does she ever stop smiling?!? (Has Andy Murray actually won anything yet? And Ryan Giggs?!?!) Anyway, I am not here to moan about how our minority sport has not made the front page every World Championship we win…

I am hoping that “good luck with training” message I got from her will give me a good kick up the backside. The last few days have resulted in zero training due to a variety of reasons, with doing long hours at work eating up time and sleep, and life in general (well, Christmas celebrations) getting in the way. I just need to get out the door quicker before I get distracted! I have also been hit by a tooth infection, which gave me a bit of a one-sided hamster cheek thing going on and stopped me eating for a while (not good) so have spent a couple of days registering with a dentist, sat in dental emergency waiting rooms and pharmacies. I am now on a course of antibiotics which will sort it, and should help me get rid of the cold I have picked up as my body complains about the lack of sleep. On the plus side, the antibiotics remove any temptation to drink at the multiple Christmas parties I have coming up in the next week, which will make weekend training a bit easier! A week and a half left of work before Christmas before I can get some decent training, sleep and down time with the girlfriend.

It hasn’t all been doom and gloom though. Despite missing a few days of training, my fitness is coming back quite quickly and I am already feeling good on the bike again, and even have my feel coming back in the pool! Running is taking a bit longer with only 1 standalone run a week at the mo, though as I introduce a couple more this will get better.

Tonight I am off for a four hour intensive swim course at Streamlined Swimming over in Fleetwood. Although my swimming is adequate, I am nowhere near the level I was pre-crash, and not near the level I want to be. I am hoping to come in around 1 hour 5-10 for Switzerland (based on my 54 min 3k time trial at my best) and am going to need a lot of work, including getting rid of bad habits and getting more drills to work on my specific weaknesses, which is what I want to achieve from this course. Unfortunately Preston don’t seem to have a Masters Swim group, so I may have to head over to Blackpool or the far side of Preston to the tri club, but I definitely found it made a massive improvement to my swimming when I was with Man Tri. Something to sort out in the new year.

I am hoping to nap a copy of myself swimming from the course tonight, and if I can will put it on youtube, if I’m not too embarassed by it! Will definitely put a post about it up over the next few days.